


What God does is well done

by radbackflips



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Gen, Gesso Famiglia, Giglio Nero Famiglia, Millefiore Famiglia - Freeform, don't worry byakuran i still love you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 14:06:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1651346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radbackflips/pseuds/radbackflips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gamma learns to deal with the present day Byakuran. He doesn't like what he finds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What God does is well done

Byakuran is fifteen years old, and Gamma unrepentantly despises him. 

His clothes make him look like a punk - white and black and choked collars with safety pins, and it seems his dragon is a permanent accessory, constantly winding around his body (when it's not stealing people's food when it thinks they're not looking).

He acts like an airheaded child - laughing, smiling, mocking, somehow never seeming malicious in the slightest, and it’s an ever-present concern that Byakuran will one day make a fool of himself and the family (but Gamma knows what’s really in that head of his, and he wonders if this is how he duped so many people into trusting him).

He eats too much - if he contracts diabetes it’ll be just what he deserves, and Gamma's yet to discover how he seems to hide entire packets of marshmallows in his jacket (he remembers watching in awe as Byakuran produced not one, two, but five jumbo bags in a meeting, much to the bewilderment of those who did not know him).

He jokes, sings, floats (literally), flutters his wings and appears over Gamma's shoulder when he's trying to fill out paperwork - _"That looks boring, Gamma! Hang out with me for a while!"_ -and shoves his own responsibilities onto just about anyone else as often as he can get away with it.

Byakuran is an annoyance - immature and loud and far, far too sincere. Gamma wonders if he’s started hating Byakuran for exactly the wrong reasons.

 

\----

 

Byakuran kills time by playing video games with the volume up too loud, or floating around the mansion humming nonsensical music, if he thinks nobody's going to amuse him. When he's with Kikyo, who despite his standoffish appearance is polite and perfectly courteous, he'll pull at his clothes and bug him incessantly, pleased by even the smallest of exasperated sighs. With Torikabuto, Byakuran encourages him to show off his illusions, and with Daisy, Byakuran's more than happy to listen to his less-than-sane ramblings. Zakuro's normally drunk but Byakuran will still converse with him, answering incoherent slurring with pleasant responses that have Zakuro nodding and grinning until he inevitably passes out. Bluebell spends so much time with Byakuran it's worrying - she's not very old, she can't be, but she spends several hours in the day at Byakuran's side and the pair chatter away about the most inane things, like TV shows and cute animals and the ocean.  When they're done, if the time they spent together was during the day, Bluebell will grin and run off to play somewhere else; if it was at night, she'll sleep curled up at his side.

It's utterly infuriating how Byakuran seems to legitimately care about the Funeral Wreaths - like they're his _family_ , but Gamma knows he'd throw them away in a heartbeat. It's even worse that Shouchi Irie, who should _know_ more than _anyone_ what Byakuran's capable of is slowly opening up to him- hanging out and messing with machinery and scientific theories when they're in the same country, engaging in video chats and texting when they're not.

Spanner, at least, seems to still be wary, or at least he used to. It's hard to tell though. The man seems half asleep most of the time, even if he is minutely more aware whenever Byakuran's in the room, or listens intently enough when he starts talking about robots he's seen in other worlds. Spanner's ultimate betrayal comes when he starts handing Byakuran specialised candy out of the blue, three months in.

Tazaru, for the most part, agrees with him. "I'm not about to forget what he did," he says gruffly, just about word for word every time, "but it's hard to imagine him as the same guy that screwed us over." Gamma agrees, yes, but it feels like Tazaru's been utterly lost to him when he one day finds the man accepting a single marshmallow.

Nosaru, he thinks desperately, surely _Nosaru_ is old enough to associate the crushing fear of his future memories with the Byakuran of today? But Nosaru only has to see Byakuran flying Bluebell around the mansion to want to be a part of the game, and soon enough the sight of Byakuran ferrying two squealing children over the premises becomes a regular occurrence.

Clearly Gamma's the only one that's not gone insane.

 

\----

 

The worst part of all of this is that Yuni seems to love him.

 _Why, though,_ Gamma wants to scream every time he sees Yuni and Byakuran together, _do you not remember what he did_ _?!_ _To you?!_ But it's hard to hate Byakuran when he sees the two together; Yuni laughing at something Byakuran said or happily eating marshmallows, or just listening to the happier tales of other existences. Sometimes Byakuran will pick her up and start floating; Yuni hugging Byakuran in mid-air while his wings fold around them is about the worst thing Gamma's ever seen. Byakuran would make a great big brother if he acted like that _all_ the time, Gamma thinks miserably, but he's still waiting for the penny to drop, for Byakuran to one day suddenly snap and betray them, smashing Yuni's heart into pieces along the way.

It's not rare to see Yuni sleeping on Byakuran's lap while he sings something quietly under his breath in a language that probably doesn't exist on this world. "Can you sing something in a language I know?" Yuni asked once, and giggled at Byakuran's momentary look of confusion, "I want to sing along with you."

It's probably the most sincere smile he's ever seen on Byakuran, ever. When Byakuran happily switches to an Italian folk tune and Yuni joins in, he feels like he wants to be sick.

 

\----

 

"I don't like you," he says after six months of this agonising torture. Gamma's standing, like a normal person, but Byakuran's sitting on thin air, one of his ever-present bags of marshmallows in his lap.

"I thought you'd say that!" Byakuran replies, popping a marshmallow into his mouth. "You don't trust me at all, do you?"

"Do I have a reason to?" Gamma shot back, and Byakuran shrugs.

Another marshmallow. "Yuni trusts me," he says simply, and Gamma's rage rose to boiling point.

" _What do you want from us this time?!"_ he yells, and Byakuran looks startled for about a split second, and almost drops his marshmallows. "Are you going to ruin us again?! I won't let you torture Yuni like you did last time!" 

"Last time," Byakuran says quietly, staring at the ceiling as he considers the words, "Last time... Gamma, do you really think I'm the same Byakuran who did that to you?" He seems serious for once, and that's rare enough to warrant Gamma paying attention. "It must have been horrific, right? Getting all of those memories all at once?"

"You have no idea," Gamma grinds out through his teeth, his hands in fists.

"I do, though," Byakuran rolls a marshmallow between his fingers, taking in Gamma's startled look, "you didn't even consider it, did you? You know I was a normal person before all of this mafia stuff, right? I wouldn't have gotten involved if not for Shou. What do you think it was like? I was in class, you know? I was in class and suddenly I get hit with all these memories of me torturing and killing and hurting people with powers I'd never heard of in a possible future that _might_ happen. Yuni, the Vongola, Shou, everyone I'd ever wronged? I ran out of that classroom and threw up and passed out, I was so horrified. What," he's looking Gamma directly in the eye now, "you're surprised?"

 A bit. A lot. This didn't make sense. Byakuran wasn't supposed to _regret_ what he'd done. That destroyed the point of Byakuran.

 "I remembered all these powers that future me had, and I remembered how to use them," Byakuran's flexing his hands now; his fingers glow with white light and Gamma's terrified for a split second that Byakuran's going to kill him. But he doesn't. "When the Vongola showed up to keep an eye on me, to take me away, I didn't fight even though I could've killed them all without blinking. Because I _knew_ what I did was wrong. I knew I deserved it. And you know what the last thing I deserved was? _This family_ 's, out of _every family in every world ever's_ , kindness. And yet."

 And yet, yes. And yet Aria found Byakuran and asked him to protect her daughter (the one whose soul he sealed away, whose family he manipulated unrepentantly). And yet Yuni managed to find Byakuran and forgive him and win his undying loyalty (despite how horrifically he betrayed her and everyone she ever cared about, how little he cared while doing so). And yet.

 "I don't want you to forgive me, Gamma," Byakuran says, still unusually serious. "I want you to hate me. Someone needs to. If everyone forgives me, it'll feel like I never did anything wrong."

 

\----

 

Byakuran is fifteen years old, and Gamma is finding it harder and harder to hate him.

 


End file.
